An elderly and disabled pensioner has been left without heat for the past 11 days, despite paying a firm £289 upfront to make repairs.

Deanna Breckon, 76, of St Christopher's Road Humberston, says that she has been left without heat or hot water for the past 11 days, meaning that she cannot shower or wash clothes.

She has been forced to have sponge baths from water heated up in the kettle, something that she says is "horrible" for a person with a disability, and fears her bills will rocket because of her use of electric heaters.

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Deanna's problems started on November 23, when her boiler stopped working, and following advice called manufacturer Ideal Boilers.

Before visiting, Ideal asked her for an upfront charge of £289, informing her that someone would be with her in days to fix the boiler.

However, five days later the first contact she had was when someone rang her house phone at around 8am on a withheld number, which Deanna was unable to answer in time.

Eventually after a number of phone calls, Deanna managed to get an engineer from Ideal to look at her boiler. He informed her it required a number of parts before leaving with it still not working properly.

The following day Deanna called Ideal again who told her that it wasn't a fault with her boiler and that it was the controls that were broken, and that someone would be back out again to look at it on Thursday, December 7, which would leave her without heat for at least 13 days.

Deanna Breckon, of Humberston who had to wait 11 days for her central heating boiler to be fixed, after paying out almost £300.

A desperate Deanna then rang a local company Westlands, who visted her and after hearing her story repaired all of the problems free of charge.

Deanna said: "I am absolutely appalled by the way in which I have been treated by Ideal, it feels as though they have taken advantage of an elderly and disabled woman, by asking me to pay upfront and then never actually carrying out the work.

"When they called me initially at 8am I was moments away from answering the phone, but it rang for a few seconds then nobody turned up.

"With the current weather that we are having you would think that they would take priority to help out an old woman in need, but they have just messed me around time and time again.

"Since I have had no luck with Ideal, I have had to go to a local engineer to get the problem sorted and I'm very grateful for what they have done for me.

"But it is all still going to leave me out of pocket, when you consider the money that I have spent on heating my house with electric heaters that my friends have left me.

Deanna Breckon, of Humberston who had to wait 11 days for her central heating boiler to be fixed, after paying out almost £300.

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"I would like to give a big thank you to the lovely men at Westlands Heating who have come round, on the very same day I rang, and have fixed all of the problems free of charge, it just goes to show that there are some really brilliant local businesses here in our community."

A spokesperson from Ideal said: "The delay seems to have been caused initially with the customer not being at home when the initial call out took place. The engineer being off sick on Friday was beyond our control.

"The boiler was working when the engineer left yesterday. It seems the issue is not with the boiler, but with an external programmable thermostatic control that is not working (not an Ideal control).

"An engineer is booked to take a further look tomorrow.

"In the interest of goodwill, Ideal is happy to offer the customer a complete refund."